


Loneliness Is Not an Option

by menecio



Category: Naruto
Genre: (booleanWildcard made me write that), 90 Mins To Gift, Blanket Permission, Discord: Umino Hours, Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Furry Joy, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Supernatural Elements, Umino Hours Discord Server 90 Minutes To Gift Exchange, Urban Fantasy, Werewolf Umino Iruka, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27322891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menecio/pseuds/menecio
Summary: Iruka is used to spending his full moons alone at home. Kakashi breaks the habit for him.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 24
Kudos: 69
Collections: 90 Mins To Gift - Halloween Edition





	Loneliness Is Not an Option

**Author's Note:**

  * For [microrockets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/microrockets/gifts).



> Enjoy, Coop! 💖✨ It was my first time doing a flash gift fic, and I ran out of time like a CHAMP, but I think it came out well! Thank you for such lovely prompts. I wish I could've fit more of them in here! I decided to go with werewolf!Iruka for the supernatural aspect because of your most excellent Twitter icon. 👌 Anyway, I hope you'll like this! 😊💖✨
> 
> Thanks to [booleanWildcard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/booleanWildcard/) for the wonderful cheerleading!

It was nearing noon when Kakashi dropped by the Mission Desk to retrieve Team Seven’s D-rank of the day. The children were waiting for him at the plaza near Kakashi’s favourite organic vegetable stall—had been for the past four hours—but that was their own fault for being punctual. In any case, they would have little time to complain once Kakashi gave them their assignment—genin missions were supposed to be as time-consuming as they were boring, so they would be pressed to finish it before the sun went down.

Luckily for him, Iruka was on-duty at the desk, so Kakashi cut in line to get his scroll.

“Sorry,” he told the disgruntled jōnin who had been about to hand Iruka his mission report. “It’ll only be a second.” He turned around and beamed at the teacher. “Iruka-sensei, good morning!”

Iruka squinted up at him. “It’s almost midday, Kakashi-san.”

“Which means it’s still morning,” Kakashi said, smooth as cream. “Say, do you happen to have a D-rank scroll assigned to Team Seven on this day? I could have sworn I had it, but I may have left it here when I came to pick it up earlier.”

“That’s funny. My shift started at dawn, but I don’t recall seeing you, Kakashi-san,” Iruka said, giving him a flat look. “It’s almost like this is the first time you’ve stepped foot in here today.”

“How curious,” Kakashi drawled, taking the opportunity to rake his eye over Iruka.

The man seemed unusually keyed up, not enough to be noticeable to people who weren’t familiar with his personality, but Kakashi could tell. What was more, there was a five o’clock shadow over his jaw and cheeks, as obvious as it was unusual. Iruka was a neat shinobi, always wearing his uniform up to regulation and keeping his hair combed back into a sleek ponytail. Kakashi had never seen him with the hint of a beard until today. In short, Iruka looked a bit… not rough, but definitely unkempt for his standards.

“Are you feeling well, sensei?” Kakashi asked, leaning over the desk slightly. There was no need for him to do so, he could see Iruka just fine from where he was, but he supposed that concern had strange ways of manifesting.

Iurka blinked up at him, his vexed frown dissipating. “What? Oh, I’m—already?”

The teacher looked at the man on duty with him, a newly-minted chuunin who cast him a quick glance and said, “Oh, yeah, you might wanna take five to fix that.”

Iruka’s mouth curved downward, but he sighed and stood up without comment. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sure, no problem,” the chūnin said, waving a genin aide over to Iruka’s seat.

As he stepped out from behind the desk, Iruka grabbed a scroll with a D-rank seal and handed it to Kakashi. “Here, this is yours. Have a safe mission.”

“Thank you, sensei,” Kakashi said, still puzzled by whatever was going on with Iruka. He gestured at the door with the scroll. “Walk you out?”

For a split second, it seemed Iruka would say no, but then he nodded. “Okay.”

They fell into step next to each other, leaving the Mission Desk and Iruka leading them to the restroom. Kakashi pocketed the scroll and kept quiet until they entered it, then checked that all the stalls were empty before asking, “So, are you all right?”

Iruka sighed, pulling out a small scroll from one of his vest’s front scroll compartments. “Full moon tonight,” he said, then broke the seal—it released a razor and a bottle of shaving foam. “I’ve been having to deal with this all day. It’s not even noontime.”

Iruka looked visibly upset about it, so Kakashi said, “Well, I like it.” At Iruka’s slightly puzzled expression, he continued, “I mean, it looks good. It, you know, becomes you? It’s not terrible.”

Iruka’s face broke out into a grin. “You mean you love me and you want to kiss me?”

“Yes—I mean no! Sheesh, Iruka-sensei,” Kakashi groaned, hiding behind his hands. “Stop making me blush.”

“You’re always making me blush. This is lawful payback,” Iruka said, turning on the tap and flicking a finger through the stream of water to test its coldness. He gave a small grimace, probably not thrilled with the temperature. “On second thought, I might just leave it. I don’t want half my face freezing off.”

“I support that decision,“ Kakashi said.

Iruka grinned at him again. “Because you love me and you want to kiss—”

“Well, sensei, I’ll be going now!” Kakashi said, loud enough that his voice echoed off the restroom walls. “Lots of things to do today with my students. Important things like”—Kakashi cracked the mission scroll open and skimmed through it—“combating the fearsome weeds in Kobayashi Maru’s backyard. Thrilling stuff.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Iruka said, not quite managing to hold back his snigger. He turned off the tap and wiped his hand on his trousers, then re-sealed the razor and shaving foam. “Have fun with that.”

“How about we all go grab a bite at Ichiraku’s after?” Kakashi asked. “We should be free by sundown.”

Iruka gave Kakashi a rueful smile, pointing at himself. “Full moon tonight.”

“So? It’s not like Teuchi-san will mind,” Kakashi said, shrugging. “You’re hardly the only cryptid regular he has. Just don’t break anything with your big furry paws. I think he even has canid-friendly tableware.”

“Ah, I know, it’s just—” Iruka didn’t fidget, but he raised a hand to rub at the scar bisecting his nose. “I’m a cryptid regular at Ichiraku, but I’m not a regular cryptid in Konoha. I just don’t want to cause trouble. It’s fine, really,” Iruka said, raising a hand to halt Kakashi’s rebuttal.

“If you say so,” Kakashi said, brow furrowed.

Iruka put the small scroll with his toiletries away, then smiled at Kakashi. “I should head back. Send the kids my love, will you?”

“All right, sensei.” Kakashi held the door for him and they walked out of the restroom together. Iruka would head left; Kakashi would head right. “See you tomorrow, then.”

Iruka waved as he started on his way down the hall. “See you tomorrow.”

Kakashi waved back, eye arched up into a smile, then turned around and headed for the exit.

If things went according to plan, he would be seeing Iruka tonight.

* * *

Combating weeds was, shockingly enough, not as exciting as it sounded, which meant that it was worse than mind-numbingly tedious. His trio of genin steadily grumbled and groused through the task, pulling out weeds and, sometimes, perfectly good grass as the hours trickled by. Kakashi found a comfortable spot in the autumn sun and thumbed through his favourite passages of _Icha Icha Paradise_ , every now and then making sure that Naruto and Sasuke weren’t about to kill each other or that Sakura wasn’t about to kill Naruto. Considering they made a sport of that, he saw his reading time interrupted more often than he’d like.

When all the weeds were finally banished from Kobayashi-san’s backyard, the sun had already dipped below the horizon. The moon was out, pale and round in the night sky. Kakashi stared at it as he began the stroll back to the Mission Desk with his team, half-listening to Sakura and Naruto squabble over the mission report Kakashi had given them to fill out for him.

“Full moon tonight,” he murmured, Iruka’s resigned cadence echoing in his mind.

“What was that, sensei?” Sakura looked up at the sky. “Oh, yes. It’s beautiful, isn’t it, Sasuke?”

“I don’t care about things like that,” Sasuke said.

“Iruka-sensei is probably home already,” Naruto interrupted.

Kakashi redirected his attention to the blond boy. “You know about that?”

“Everyone knows about that, Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto said, giving him a strange look.

“He’s just surprised you noticed, Naruto,” Sakura said, giggling behind a hand. “You aren’t the most observant, that’s all.”

“I’m observant!” Naruto refuted, then promptly tripped on a pebble.

Sakura burst out laughing.

“Now, now, children,” Kakashi said. “Let’s hand in the scroll and call it a day. Come on.”

He used a burst of chakra speed to jump onto a rooftop and then three buildings over, the children squawking and chasing after him at a slower pace. Ten minutes later, they were standing in line at the Mission Desk. Iruka-sensei wasn’t there, as Naruto had predicted, but then again Kakashi doubted that Iruka would have been there on a normal day anyway. The morning shift ended at lunchtime, and Iruka had started at dawn that day.

When it was their turn, Kakashi offered his scroll then gave a small, “Whoops,” and quickly signed it before handing it to the desk clerk. The man skimmed over the mission scroll, giving Kakashi a suspicious look at the unusually neat handwriting, but stamped a seal of approval on it without comment.

Once they were all outside the building, Kakashi dismissed Sakura and Sasuke for the day, then turned to Naruto and said, “You got a second? I’d like to talk to you about something.”

Naruto tensed. “If this is about the fireball, it was Sasuke’s idea.”

“It’s not about the fireball. Nothing got burnt, so it’s okay,” Kakashi reassured him. “It’s actually about Iruka.”

Naruto squinted. “What about him?”

Kakashi tried to think about how to broach the topic. “It’s his furry night tonight, yes?”

“Er,” Naruto scratched the top of his yellow head, “yeah?”

“I was thinking we could drop by and keep him company,” Kakashi said, giving a calculatedly nonchalant shrug. “Bring him some ramen. Maybe go running in the forest. What do you say?”

Naruto’s squint increased, then his eyes grew as wide as his smile. “Heck, yeah! Let’s do it!”

* * *

“I-ru-ka-sen-sei!” Naruto called, banging his fist on the door with each syllable. “Open up! We have food!”

“Go away, Naruto,” came the muffled, slightly-growly reply.

“It’s ramen!” Naruto said. “Kakashi-sensei paid for it!”

There was a beat of silence, then they heard soft shuffling and clicking—large paws on wooden flooring—approaching the door. A moment later, the wards went down and the door creaked open. Iruka stood there, looking bulkier and definitely fluffier than usual, his soft sun-kissed features replaced by a fearsome muzzle and triangular ears. He was still wearing his uniform, but it looked a size or two too small on him.

“Hi, Iruka-sensei,” Naruto said, smiling up at his former teacher. He held up the takeaway bag. “Hungry?”

Iruka licked his teeth. “Um. Yeah.”

He glanced at Kakashi, who raised a hand in greeting. “Yo, sensei. Since you couldn’t join us for dinner tonight, we thought you’d like to have dinner brought to you.”

“Dinner with sensei!” Naruto said, pumping a fist into the air. “Er—both sensei!”

“You didn’t have to do this,” Iruka murmured, the soft tone a low growl.

“We wanted to,” Kakashi said. “Naruto was very excited about celebrating your furry night with you.”

“ _My furry_ —no, I won’t ask.”

Kakashi chuckled, and he noticed Iruka’s tail wag once behind him before he got it back under control. Because he was a gentleman, Kakashi didn’t point it out, but something about his expression must’ve shown what he was thinking because Iruka gave a soft growl.

“Well, let us in already!” Naruto said, cutting off Iruka’s rumble. “Ramen’s getting cold!”

Iruka hesitated for a moment, then opened the door the rest of the way.


End file.
